Job 24

¹ Why are times of judgment not kept by the Almighty,
and why do those who know him never see his days?

² People move boundary stones;
they seize flocks and pasture them.

³ They drive away the donkey of the fatherless;
they take the widow's ox for a pledge.

⁴ They turn the poor aside from the road;
the humble of the earth all hide themselves.

⁵ Like wild donkeys in the desert
the poor go out to their work,
seeking game;
the wasteland yields food for their children.

⁶ They gather fodder in the field,
and they glean the vineyard of the wicked.

⁷ They lie all night naked, without clothing,
and have no covering in the cold.

⁸ They are wet with the showers of the mountains
and cling to the rock for lack of shelter.

⁹ There are those who snatch the fatherless child from the breast
and take in pledge the infant of the poor.

¹⁰ They go about naked, without clothing;
hungry, they carry the sheaves.

¹¹ Between the rows of olive trees they make oil;
they tread the winepresses, but suffer thirst.

¹² From out of the city the dying groan,
and the soul of the wounded cries for help;
yet God pays no attention to their prayer.

¹³ There are those who rebel against the light,
who do not know its ways
and do not stay in its paths.

¹⁴ The murderer rises before dawn;
he kills the poor and needy,
and in the night he is like a thief.

¹⁵ The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight,
saying, 'No eye will see me,'
and he veils his face.

¹⁶ In the dark they dig through houses;
by day they shut themselves up;
they do not know the light.

¹⁷ For morning is the same to all of them as deep darkness;
they are friends with the terrors of deep darkness.

¹⁸ You say: 'He is swift upon the face of the waters;
their portion is cursed in the land;
no treader turns toward their vineyards.'

¹⁹ Drought and heat steal the snow-fed waters;
Sheol steals those who have sinned.

²⁰ The womb forgets them; the worm finds them sweet;
they are no longer remembered,
so wickedness is broken like a tree.

²¹ They devour the childless woman who does not conceive
and do no good to the widow.

²² Yet God prolongs the life of the mighty by his power;
they rise when they despair of life.

²³ He gives them security, and they are supported;
his eyes are upon their ways.

²⁴ They are exalted a little while, and then they are gone;
they are brought low, they wither like the mallow;
they are cut off like the heads of grain.

²⁵ If it is not so, who will prove me a liar
and show that there is nothing in what I say?